Research at the Institute of HeartMath tells us the heart has an electronic field 5,000 times greater than that of our brain, and that this field can be sized up to 10 feet away! This field is our body’s automated reply to spatial proximity; it is our own natural boundary and plays a dynamic, and, for the main part, unconscious, role not just in leadership development, but our lives in general.

This information isn’t something we learn in school or any leadership development curriculum. Actually for many of us, this feeling of interacting with the environment and trusting it thru electromagnetic fields sounds like scifi or new-age garbage. However it is at work on a unconscious level nonetheless and it's one of the most unemployed resources in developing powerful leadership.

Leaders who can't embrace the theory that much of their power and success, or absence of it, is founded upon unconscious influences like their heart’s electric field and its influence on their relations, are finding that steering an organisation or team to success a much bigger challenge than it ever has been.

Normal leadership development focuses upon qualities like personality, integrity, values, loyalty, mental awareness, capability to influence—all critical sides of leadership. Nonetheless how do you teach and learn these talents? Leadership for the new millennium requires different talents, teaching and learning. This is where a world-leading approach to leadership comes in: equine experiential learning.

Horses are social creatures that instantaneously and truthfully make a response to the issues implicit in forming and sustaining relations. As animals that are preyed on in nature, they also have retained a highly developed capability to sense changes in the stance and arousal level of other herd members, a capability they simply transfer to interplay with homo sapiens. Horses see thru the smallest incongruities of emotion and target; subtle, as well as vital, command skills.

Case Study

Working with horses provides a technique for folks to become mindful of their heart’s electromagnetic field, their body’s natural sensory device , and the messages they are “sending out” unknowingly. This info provides revelations into why leaders continuously create scenarios that do not work. A case in point is David, an SVP at an outstanding oil company.

David was in trouble; he had gone too far and stepped on too many toes. Although he was a brilliant pioneer and delivered dynamic results, it was costing too much through his leadership style. I counseled a private leadership comprehensive with the horses: “Communication for Legitimate Leadership.”

The intensive was a mix of experiential learning with horses and integration of newly discovered insights into conventional leadership materials. Shortly on his arrival, I knew what horses we wanted to work with: Simon, a 16.3-hand Thoroughbred gelding and the dominant member of the Equine Alchemy herd, and Seamus, a 17-hand Oldenburg paint—a frolicsome teenager at 6 and very good at testing awareness and relationship.

One of the first interplay with the horses was a simple leading exercise where David explored the “head, heart, and tummy” fashions of leadership. The target of the exercise is, through leading the horse, to gain understanding of one’s “default” position regarding which of those three styles they most often act from.

Simon was haltered with a long lead rope. David was asked to steer Simon around an arena while concentrating on his head, heart, and gut, respectively, and observing the difference in the quality of the experience. Although David had experienced a demonstration of Simon being lead with a slack lead rope by a petite woman, when he took Simon by the lead rope, heproceeded to literally pull and yank Simon around the arena. At 1 time I became anxious for my horse; their stress level is a direct reaction to the stress of the client. Simon’s reaction to the strain mirrored David’s male dominion, and he, become highly agitated. I recommended that David let go of his tight grip on the lead rope, but he did not hear me; he was too involved in controlling the situation. Eventually, Simon had to be taken from him for the safeness of each.

Lessons Learned

This was a forceful experience for David that offered chances for studying about his. Leadership style:

Leading from the Head—David’s default leadership position was to act from the head, or cognitive center, alone. His experience of the leading exercise was one of projecting his very own fears onto the pony. He used phrases like “He (Simon) is testing me. He's attempting to see who is boss. I want to make sure he knows who is manager, etc.” The entire time was spent establishing who was in control by controlling Simon with a pointlessly vicious hold on him.
Leading from the Heart—David had no “control” over Simon when he led from within, or the emotional center. For him, there was no connection with the horse if he could not use force. As far as David was concerned there wasn't any relationship with Simon; simply a task to be accomplished and a means by which to do that.
Leading from the Gut—When David led from the tummy, the power center, the interplay with Simon escalated into a power play that started energetically, but with a 1,200-pound horse, quickly turned into a potential physical danger. His lack of awareness and contempt for the relationship ended in a demonstration of power vs. Force.

David’s leadership style was criticized back at work as being too cruel with little relationship. Through this one experiential exercise with horses, David experienced instant feedback from his leadership style in a way he couldn't ignore. When faced with a job, he had no cognizance of the dynamic between him and Simon, which led to his lack of ability to be in relationship and , therefore , creating a block in achieving the task. David came to us not knowing why he couldn't get done what he was so qualified to do. Thru this exercise he was beginning to notice that how he was “being” and “not being” was creating his ineffectual leadership style.

David’s challenges in the arena mirrored his challenges at work and created an opportunity to shift this model of control to one of awareness and relationship; a viewpoint he so badly needed to develop his very own leadership style. The equine leadership experience let him understand and integrate the prospects of boundary awareness and relationship in leadership through working with another sentient being that wasn't on his payroll.

This was only one of the experiences David had during our work together that enabled him to step into a higher level of leadership. Months later on David still asserts the equine leadership experience changed his entire life. He made a decision he required a new start for his “new” life and left the oil company. After a sabbatical with his wife, David commenced another successful career with a replacement set of awareness and skills; ones that are serving him and his organization well.

Lisa Murrell is an Equine Assisted Coach who works alongside middle management wanting to become better leaders. Discover more about how horses can teach you leadership by going to http://EquineAlchemy.com. Attend Lisa’s coaching salon if you’re a coach who is excited about learning more about equine facilitated coaching.